Hit Me With Your Best Camera Angle.

One of my biggest sports pet peeves is a poor camera angle. Seriously, this is not an artsy documentary, it's a sporting event. Give us, the dear fans, the consistent and best angle. Have you ever been stuck looking at the floor view? Great, now we get a five minute steady stream of a player's expensive and over-endorsed shoes (are the apparel companies slowly taking over networks?). Now it's camera guy number two's turn to give us a view from...wait for it...behind the backboard. How am I going to tell if the free throw is good or not? Quit getting fancy and pan out to the full or half court view.

Unfortunately, this frustration isn't limited to basketball. It can be frequent in golf, too. All of a sudden, a crucial putt is about to be made, and all you can see is a sea of green in which the game is not Where's Woods? but rather Where's the Hole? Sometimes it's a fake out, and at the last possible moment, you get the view you've been wanting. I guess the cameraman got a little bored, set the camera down on the green, and went to take a leak or get a sandwich. He saw what a terrible feed he was getting in the clubhouse and realized "oh crap! That's my shoddy camera work!".

But there is hope and light at the end of the football tunnel! I have never been betrayed by the angles and camera shots in football. There is the occasional up close and cursory view of the line of scrimmage, but the cameraman never disappoints and gets to THE shot at least one "hike!" before the ball is snapped.

So if any of you sports cameramen out there are reading this-enough with the alternative angle business. Stick to the basics of what we want. You will not win an Oscar for your feed of the game winning shot by putting the camera a bit off-center and from behind for visual interest. To the football cameramen, I salute you and your faithful filming. Keep it up!